majority. >> senator carl levin andsenatorjohnmccainaremanaging this bill. we understand they hope to finish it in three days. that will not happen. how much more work is there to do? >> is remains to be seen. a lot needs to be sorted out behind the scenes. i do believe they would like to be finished by monday. that is where we are now. >> the house approved its defense authorization bill earlier this year. how does the senate bill differ? >> i was just speaking to some people on the house side, and they do not see any major difficulties in getting this done. last year, they were able to get a conference done in roughly nine days. i was assured they believe they can do the same this time. it does not look like it is going to be terribly contentious. both committees were trying to keep this non-controversial. as you know, we are coming to the end of the session so they need it quickly. >> do you think they will be able to do it by the end of the year? >> absolutely. >> thank you for your time. >> my pleasure. >> the senate returns on monday at 2:00 p.m. to resume consideration on th

dole, andcertainlyjohnmccain. lastnight i spent hours be reading warren's memorir " combat." i found out he was a great judge of character. on senator mitchell, he said, " george could under the most partisan statements and still sound as innocent as a choir boy." [laughter] he said, he is such a man of intelligence and charm, i could disagree with him and still be his friend. on senator biden, "joe was smart, young, ambitious, disorganized, and bursting with energy and enthusiasm." i david souter, he said something -- each of us have spoken at the podium about warren. he said, "david is my friend. i trust him. i respect him. i like him. he made me think, reflect, and laugh. i think all of us would say the same thing about warren today. he made us think and reflect and laugh. one final thing about his humor -- senator baker was here today. both warren and i voted for a sale. i received a great deal of hate mail because of my name. i'm half irish and half jewish. i am the only one who can be put on the israeli border and be shot from both sides. [laughter] i was getting all of t

the assessmentfromjohnmccain. >>there is no doubt whatsoever that the demographics are not on our side and we are going to have to give a much more positive agenda. it can't be just being against the democrats. >> all right, seems simple enough, doesn't it? how do they do it? amy, i'm going to start with you on this one. >> how they do it is actually what we've been seeing happening on the house sides, since the republicans started laying out their vision for the future, entitlement reform, social security, medicare. i think comprehensive immigration reform is something that needs to be addressed. i'm glad that you used senator mccain, because when i worked for bill frist, he worked very cho closely with senator mccain and then president bush to get immigration reform done. this is something they'll have to tack until a proactive and positive way in order to reach out to voters for whom these are very important issues and concerns. >> all right, well, let's talk about women. house speaker john boehner announced the committee chairman of 19 committees earlier this week. all but one are white m

of her most outspoken critics, republicansenatorsjohnmccain, lindseygraham, and kelly ayotte to set the record straight. rice had gone on five sunday talk shows days after the attack and called it a spontaneous demonstration sparked by an antimuslim film and did not mention the link to al qaeda. after all this taking on her critics, the republican senators weren't impressed. >> bottom line, i'm more dist b disturbed now than i was before that the 16 september explanation about how four americans died in benghazi, libya, by ambassador rice, i think does not do justice to the reality at the time and in hindsight clearly was completely wrong. >> rice maintains she did nothing wrong. issuing a statement saying we stressed that neither i nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the american people at any stage of this process. peter brooks is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, general wesly clark and, of course, former democratic presidential candidate. senator mccain was asked who do you blame more at this point? ambassador rice or president obama? he says